


The One Deduction

by Rini2012



Series: The High Functioning Sociopath's Guide to Dating Your Blogger [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alcoholic Harry Watson, Beginnings of a romance, Bisexual John Watson, Insecure John, John POV, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Post-Episode: s01e01 A Study in Pink, ambiguous Sherlock Holmes, season 1 Sherlock, socially inept Sherlock, trans!John Watson, transphobic Harry Watson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:00:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23236597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rini2012/pseuds/Rini2012
Summary: John knew that Sherlock could see through everyone just by looking at them and 'observing'... yet when they met, there was one deduction that never came.Now he was just waiting for it.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: The High Functioning Sociopath's Guide to Dating Your Blogger [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1674667
Comments: 16
Kudos: 157





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Possibly the beginning of a series. Let me know what you think.
> 
> Also thanks to my beta readers the_reverend and Brice0226

John had been presenting as male full time since he moved out at 18. He’d started testosterone and waited for it to work on him a bit before he went to Uni. He figured that once he was officially Dr. John Watson, he’d have been on hormones long enough to pass in the army without question. When he enlisted, his supervisors knew because of his paperwork, but none of his comrades did. He’d had chest reconstruction his second year of Uni, so no one asked questions when he was topless. No one even raised an eyebrow when he was in hospital for his gunshot wound, which he considered lucky.

At Bart's, he had waited with baited breath for the one deduction that never came. Sherlock Holmes managed to deduce John’s military service, his relationship with his sister, and his psychosomatic limp. That was just from watching him walk into the lab and using his mobile. For the rest of the next day, John wondered if Sherlock figured out another… piece of him. The one that started the fights with his sister, or left him without calls back from dates. Why John was currently moving into a flat in London instead of reaching out to family.

They all loved and supported  _ Lucy _ , not John.


	2. I

The day after John shot the cabby, he brought his two duffle bags and a backpack of possessions to Baker Street. John was thankful that Sherlock managed to unpack and sort his things a bit more before he got there, it wouldn’t be like going through a maze to get tea. He sat his bags down at the doorway to the lounge and shrugged off his coat and backpack. Sherlock was sat cross legged in his chair with a violin, plucking the strings.

“There should be an ice pack in the freezer next to the mold samples,” Sherlock said.

John just paused for a moment and stared. “How did you-?”

“Your shoulders are hunched forward and you were about to reach up and rub your afflicted shoulder.”

“Should I just give up asking you how you know everything?”

“No, speaking my deductions out loud helps keep my brain stimulated.”

“Right.” John would be lying if he said he didn’t find Sherlock’s deductions fascinating.

He was about to walk to the kitchen for that ice pack Sherlock mentioned, but tripped on one of his bags. He didn’t fall, so he just continued to the kitchen without a second glance at Sherlock. When he reached the freezer, he heard Sherlock get up and walk in the direction of the sofa. As expected, there was an ice pack in the door of the freezer next to a petri dish of mold. However, Sherlock failed to mention the bag of animal ears next to the frozen peas. What kind of experiment could possibly require severed animal ears in a freezer? Maybe picking Sherlock as a flatmate was a mistake.

“Sherlock-.”

“Why do you have a foam piece in your luggage?”

Foam-?  _ Oh dear god! _ John rushed out of the kitchen, with a small hope that Sherlock hadn’t found what he thought he did. Unfortunately, John was absolutely wrong. Sherlock was knelt on the floor next to John’s duffle bags, holding one of John’s foam packers. It almost felt like Sherlock was holding his dick, and it made him feel sick.

“Ignore that.” John rushed over and grabbed the packer out of Sherlock’s hand. “It’s nothing important.”

Sherlock gave him a raised eyebrow. “If it’s not important, then what is it?”

“Um…”

John didn’t know what to say at first. This was one of the few times that he was thankful he couldn’t afford any of those silicone packers that looked like penises. Saying that a realistic packer was a dildo seemed more embarrassing than a piece of foam.

“A - uh - aid for my shoulder,” John lied. “If I need extra support when I lie down, I just place it under my shoulder and it helps.”

“Yet when I mentioned the ice pack, you retrieved it without unpacking the ‘aid’ for your shoulder-.”

“Just leave it be, Sherlock, please.”

He didn’t let Sherlock get another word in before John grabbed his bags and headed upstairs. If Sherlock was going to keep prying, he needed to put everything away so he had some semblance of privacy. Little did he know, privacy wasn’t in Sherlock’s vocabulary.


	3. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The deductions in this chapter were looked at and approved by trans men who wanted to help make the deductions believable.

They’d been living together for a week and it already felt like years. Two nights in, John was woken up by Sherlock’s violin at 3 in the morning. Yeah, Sherlock had warned him about it, but now that John was experiencing it, he hated it. And it didn’t stop until 5 am.

On multiple occasions, John would go to grab a pot or mug, and Sherlock was using it for an “experiment”. He tried to tell Sherlock that he needed to separate the mug full of dead cockroaches from the clean mugs, but it went in one ear and out the other. The next afternoon, John found two plates stuck together with a mysterious residue and he made sure to wash the others with bleach just in case.

Not to mention there was the silence, times when John went out and Sherlock thought he’d spoken to him; just too many issues to count. John still didn’t know if Sherlock knew about his gender identity, either.

After a quick shower one Sunday morning, John took his weekly testosterone injection. He wasn’t exactly hiding it, there just wasn’t a conversation where it was brought up. John kept his injections in a small case in his nightstand drawer, sterilized his needles after use, and had never missed a dose in his 20 years of taking it.

As usual, John used an alcohol wipe to sterilize his thigh, took his injection, and placed a band aid on the injection area. When his psychosomatic limp had started, he’d switched to using his left thigh for injections. Now that it was gone (thanks to Sherlock), he could go back to his old routine. With another wipe, John disinfected the needle, and suddenly caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror.

He’d avoided looking at his nude reflection since returning to England. His body had finally reached what he thought was masculine perfection when he finished basic. The toned muscles had hidden the fact that he had wide hips, and topless no one asked about his chest reconstruction scars after he lied that it was an accident as a kid. Now the muscles had softened a bit, but he still had redistributed fat from transitioning that made him more mascluine. Thank god his hourglass shape didn’t show at all.

The thing that drew his eye was the scar on his left shoulder. He didn’t look at it much after he could stop applying bandages; he was still afraid that without muscles, he looked feminine. In a strange way, the fact that he had a battle scar made him feel even more like a man. Growing up, he’d heard his dad’s mates’ war stories from being in the Army. Harry couldn’t care less about “dumb war rubbish”, but John was totally enchanted by it. Even before he came out, he knew he wanted to serve his country, and the scar was almost a badge of honor now. Though the trauma was something he wouldn’t wish on anyone.

With a bittersweet smile, John put on his robe and packed away his kit… then was given a fright when he opened the door to see Sherlock’s piercing gaze. John simply watched as Sherlock’s eyes observed his body, then looked at his kit, and he stated,

“Testosterone injections for Hormone Replacement Therapy.”

John almost flinched, but instead held his head up defiantly. “Is that going to be a problem?”

Sherlock scowled as if insulted by the accusation. “I had no problem with it when I hypothesised it. Why would it matter to me now that my hypothesis has been confirmed?”

John’s brain skidded to a halt. Sherlock Holmes, the man who  _ thrived _ on revealing people’s secrets, knew and didn’t say anything? John couldn’t think of anything to say before Sherlock went into the lounge. Another minute passed by the time he could actually react. John had to physically shake himself in order to leave the bathroom. In the lounge, Sherlock was laying on the sofa with his fingers steepled together.

“I’m gonna get dressed,” John said. “And I expect you to tell me how you knew when I come back down.”

“Why not now?”

“Having this conversation in a robe makes me feel a bit exposed, ever heard of it?” John snarked as he walked up the stairs.

He may have sounded angry (and he was a bit), but John was actually curious as to how Sherlock deduced it. Unlike those who marched in Pride parades or wore trans flag pins on their coats, John wasn’t in the habit of advertising his transexuality to people he didn’t know. He’d made that mistake his first year of Uni, and he nearly got beaten bloody for it. If Mike hadn’t been passing by at the time, he’d have been in deep shit.

Fully clothed, John went back downstairs and Sherlock hadn’t moved. John took a deep breath.

“Ok.” He pulled out one of the chairs from the table and sat it in front of the coffee table. “How did you know?”

“When we met at Bart's, among the more important deductions of your military service and alcoholic  _ sister _ , I had a suspicion that you were transgender. Firstly your Adam’s apple isn’t as defined for someone your age and build, so you most likely developed one later in life, hinting at the Testosterone injections that you just administered earlier. Your hips are wider than a usual man’s and you prefer baggier clothing despite still being in shape. You’re still insecure about the masculine shape of your body, so you portray a more masculine shape with your clothes.

“Then there was the foam packer that fell out of your duffle bag. Despite it not being shaped like a penis, the company label on the back was a dead giveaway as a name like “transformedgenders.com”, and the item label “nude foam packer” told me exactly what it was. Though I was still collecting data, so I didn’t point it out.

“Now your transition added to the animosity between you and Harry. You said yourself that you’d never gotten along, which means you came out to her before starting your medical transition. Idiots think that the LGBT community accepts each other unconditionally, but Harry being gay and not accepting you is a prime example of that notion being wrong.

“You also showed signs of anxiety when meeting the other officers at Jennifer Wilson’s murder. Most likely you were concerned that you didn’t pass well enough as it happened every time they referred to you with male pronouns. Therefore you’re transgender and have been transitioning for over 20 years, which is why you’re estranged from your family and Harry doesn’t support you.

“As to what I think, since you somehow find it important, I shall reiterate that it doesn’t matter and it didn’t matter to me when I merely had suspicions. Now ask yourself this: why would Mike Stamford suggest we share a flat if I was transphobic?”

That… was actually a good point. Mike had been John’s #1 support in Medical School and it was a relief to have someone support him as a man while also knowing his gender identity. He would never knowingly introduce John to someone who was intolerant, let alone a potential flatmate. John sat back and crossed his arms over his chest.

“He wouldn’t have,” John conceded. “And Harry was an absolute prick when I started transitioning.”

“Isn’t prick a masculine insult?”

“Think about who you’re talking to, Sherlock.”

Sherlock actually cracked an eye open for that. “Not good?”

“No.”

“Right, did I miss anything?”

“I wasn’t twitching because of nerves,” John pointed out. “When you’re full-time, you’re  _ happy _ when people you meet use your preferred pronouns, not nervous. It somewhat validates that you pass enough that no one would think otherwise.”

Sherlock sneered, “Sentiment.”

“Don’t,” John warned. “I let you get away with being an arsehole with other things, but not with this. That’s where I draw the line.”

“I doubt that's the  _ only _ line you’ll draw, but judging by your raised emotional state, it is important to you and I shall respect that.”

John paused in surprise (for the millionth time). They’d had other clients that Sherlock had been ruthless toward since moving in together, and he hadn’t respected any of their boundaries. Yet John had said he wouldn’t allow Sherlock to be an arse about this, and he was willing to leave it be. Did he have prior experience with this? A friend from school? Family member? Whoever it was, John was thankful that they taught him how to be respectful here.

“Okay… good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to make this into a series. Let me know what you think :)
> 
> Edit: This is now becoming a series :)


End file.
